Weird Playback Problem with Volume Leveling

[compdude512]

Hi! I have been experiencing a problem with playback as of late in RadioBoss 4.6.3. Every so often, one of the songs in the playlist will want to play at a volume that is about 10 times louder than the other songs around it. It ends up being so loud that it distorts the speakers. I've always set the gain adjustment on the equalizer to -3db to avoid clipping, so the tendency of some songs to rise to extreme volume levels is strange.

If you have any suggestions on how to fix this problem, I would be open to hearing them. Thanks!

-T

 

[djsoft]

This happens every time on the same songs? If yes, please send 1-2 of those tracks to support@djsoft.net for analysis. This, probably, can happen because of very quiet beginning, and that's why program decides to increase the volume level...

 

[compdude512]

Dmitry,

I know a couple songs that are, for sure, clippers every time they're played. I'll send them off to you right away. Thanks for your help!

-T

 

[djsoft]

I checked the files and they play fine here...
The first song starts @ x0.94 amp rate and keeps around this till the end. The second song started at x1.83 and the peak amp level I see was x2.5.

Please see the attached picture, there are the settings I used.

 

[compdude512]

Dmitry,

Thanks for trying these out! I did a bit of tweaking, and the songs still clipped to the extreme. After a bit of investigation, I found the problem: somehow, these two songs didn't get encoded to mono to play over the mono PA system. When the PA saw this, it tried to overcompensate to handle the stereo signal and brought the music up to extreme volume levels instead of kicking on the clip preventer. It turns out that the problem wasn't with RadioBoss at all! I'll try to troubleshoot better next time. Totally my fault.

Before I go, I do have a follow-up question about a feature. We discussed the option to use the Last.fm Scrobbler plugin in the software. Is there a timetable for release of that feature? I totally understand that there are other features that are more important. I'd just like to know how long I have to connect my music computer back to my network. (It hasn't been connected to the network since I moved it due to the fact that network connectivity really isn't important for a system that just pipes music over a PA.)

Thanks again for all your help! Sorry to bother you with a problem that turned out to be my fault. :-[

-T

 

[djsoft]

There will be no special support for Last.fm, but we'll add support for Winamp General (gen_*) plugins - this will make it possible to use the existing winamp plugin for last.fm.

I don't know the exact release date... the list of feature requests is extremely huge. Sure thing it will be this year.